Nerves and Common Sense eBook

If, however, the wife had yielded in the beginning
not only to her husband’s bad temper but also
to the antagonism of her mother-in-law, which was,
of course, annoying in many petty ways, she might
have gained her husband’s friendship, and it
is possible that she might, moreover, have gained
the friendship of her mother-in-law.

The best rule with regard to all trying members of
the family is to yield to them always in non-essentials;
and when you disagree in essentials stick to the principle
which you believe to be right, but stick to it without
resistance. Believe your way, but make yourself
willing that the trying member should believe her way.
Make an opportunity of what appears to be a limitation,
and, believe me, your trying member can become a blessing
to you.

I go further than that—­I truly believe
that to make the best of life every family should
have a trying member. When we have no trying
member of our family, and life goes along smoothly,
as a matter of course, the harmony is very liable
to be spurious, and a sudden test will all at once
knock such a family into discord, much to the surprise
of every member. When we go through discord to
harmony, and once get into step, we are very likely
to keep in step:

Be willing, then, make yourself willing, that the
trying member should be in the way. Hope that
she will stay in your family until you have succeeded
in dropping not only all resistance to her being there,
but every resistance to her various ways in detail.
Bring her annoying ways up to your mind voluntarily
when you are away from her. If you do that you
will find all the resistances come with them and you
can relax out of the strain then and there. You
will find that when you get home or come down to breakfast
in the morning (for many resistances are voluntarily
thrown off in the night) you will have a pleasanter
feeling toward the trying member, and it comes so
spontaneously that you will be surprised yourself at
the absence of the strain of resistance in you.

Believe me when I say this: the yielding in the
non-essentials, singularly enough, gives one strength
to refuse to yield in principles. But we must
always remember that if we want to find real peace,
while we refuse to yield in our own principles so long
as we believe them to be true, we must be entirely
willing that others should differ from us in belief.

CHAPTER VI

Irritable Husbands

SUPPOSE your husband got impatient and annoyed with
you because you did not seem to enter heartily into
the interests of his work and sympathize with its
cares and responsibilities and soothe him out of the
nervous harassments. Would you not perhaps feel
a little sore that he seemed to expect all from you
and to give nothing in return? I know how many
women will say that is all very well, but the husband
and father should feel as much interest in the home
and the children as the wife and mother does.
That is, of course, true up to a certain point, always
in general, and when his help is really necessary
in particular. But a man cannot enter into the
details of his wife’s duties at home any more
than a woman can enter into the details of her husband’s
duties at his office.